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Page 12
And, indeed, even the Staff was not keen about entering. It thought
of a lot of things it ought to do about visiting time, and
prescribed considerably over the telephone.
At first there was a great deal of confusion, because quite a number
of people had been out on various errands when it happened. And they
came back, and protested to the office that they had only their
uniforms on under their coats, and three dollars; or their slippers
and no hats. Or that they would sue the city. One or two of them got
quite desperate and tried to crawl up the fire-escape, but failed.
This is of interest chiefly because it profoundly affected Jane
Brown. Miss McAdoo, her ward nurse, had debated whether to wash her
hair that evening, or to take a walk. She had decided on the walk,
and was therefore shut out, along with the Junior Medical, the
kitchen cat, the Superintendent's mother-in-law and six other
nurses.
The next morning the First Assistant gave Jane Brown charge of H
ward.
"It's very irregular," she said. "I don't exactly know--you have
only one bad case, haven't you?"
"Only Johnny."
The First Assistant absent-mindedly ran a finger over the top of a
table, and examined it for dust.
"Of course," she said, "it's a great chance for you. Show that you
can handle this ward, and you are practically safe."
Jane Brown drew a long breath and stood up very straight. Then she
ran her eye over the ward. There was something vaguely reminiscent
of Miss McAdoo in her glance.
Twenty-two made three brief excursions back along the corridor
that first day of the quarantine. But Jane Brown was extremely
professional and very busy. There was an air of discipline over the
ward. Let a man but so much as turn over in bed and show an inch of
blanket, and she pounced on the bed and reduced it to the most
horrible neatness. All the beds looked as if they had been made up
with a carpenter's square.
On the third trip, however, Jane Brown was writing at the table.
Twenty-two wheeled himself into the doorway and eyed her with
disapproval.
"What do you mean by sitting down?" he demanded sarcastically.
"Don't you know that now you are in charge you ought to keep
moving?"
To which she replied, absently:
"Three buttered toasts, two dry toasts, six soft boiled eggs, and
twelve soups." She was working on the diet slips.
Then she smiled at him. They were quite old friends already. It is
curious about love and friendship and all those kindred emotions.
They do not grow nearly so fast when people are together as when
they are apart. It is an actual fact that the growth of many an
intimacy is checked by meetings. Because when people are apart it is
what they _are_ that counts, and when they are together it is what
they do and say and look like. Many a beautiful affair has been
ruined because, just as it was going along well, the principals met
again.
However, all this merely means that Twenty-two and Jane Brown were
infinitely closer friends than four or five meetings really
indicates.
The ward was very quiet on this late afternoon call of his save for
Johnny's heavy breathing. There is a quiet hour in a hospital,
between afternoon temperatures and the ringing of the bell which
means that the suppers for the wards are on their way--a quiet hour
when over the long rows of beds broods the peace of the ending day.
It is a melancholy hour, too, because from the streets comes faintly
the echo of feet hurrying home, the eager trot of a horse bound
stableward. To those in the eddy that is the ward comes at this time
a certain heaviness of spirit. Poor thing though home may have been,
they long for it.
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